Selected aspects of the efficiency of communes’ investment expenditure in predominantly rural areas of mazowieckie province in the years 2003–2014

Abstract

The article deals with an important and at the same time difficult current topic of the efficiency of investments made by the public sector, in this case by communes situated in predominantly rural areas. Its significance stems from the fact that communes located in rural areas are characterised by low income potential and have to manage the funds at their disposal in a specific manner. On the other hand, the difficulty lies in that the object of activity of the public sector is supply of non-market public goods, which bring great benefits to the society but are hard to measure. For this reason, an attempt has been made to evaluate communes’ investment efficiency on the basis of: measurable changes in communes’ demographic situation, citizens and economic entities’ income status and the self-government’s financial standing. The relationship between the amounts intended for investments and the measures characterising these changes has been proved by means of statistical methods, which has led to formulating some conclusions regarding the efficiency of the analysed communes’ efficiency. High efficiency of communes has been found from the point of view of the society (increase in residents’ income). Simultaneously, their influence on the local economy has not been observed (increase in companies’ income). What has been found as unfavourable is the process of the self-government’s financial result getting worse due to their low increase in income and visible rise in the costs of on-going activity. Last but not least, it has been assessed as a mistake that the investment activity aims at attracting external factors rather than maintenance of the ones that units have on their hands.